“It’s too late to-night; but I’ll go in the morning. He usually drops in on me Sundays; he didn’t come last Sunday; but I never thought of his being sick.” He went on to praise Kane, and he said, as if it were one of Kane’s merits, “He’s been a good friend of mine. He read my novel all over after Chapley declined it, and tried to find enough good in it to justify him in recommending it to some other publisher. I don’t blame him for failing, but I did feel hard about his refusing to look at it afterwards; I couldn’t help it for a while.” He was speaking to Peace, and he said, as if it were something she would be cognizant of, “I mean when Mr. Brandreth sent for it again after he first rejected it.”
“Yes,” she admitted, briefly, and he was subtly aware of the withdrawal which he noticed in her whenever the interest of the moment became personal.
But there was never any shrinking from the personal interest in Mrs. Denton; her eagerness to explore all his experiences and sentiments was vivid and untiring.
“Why did he send for it?” she asked. “What in the world for?”
Ray was willing to tell, for he thought the whole affair rather creditable to himself. “He wanted to submit it to a friend of mine; and if my friend’s judgment was favorable he might want to reconsider his decision. He returned the manuscript the same day, with a queer note which left me to infer that my mysterious friend had already seen it, and had seen enough of it. I knew it was Mr. Kane, and for a while I wanted to destroy him. But I forgave him, when I thought it all over.”
“It was pretty mean of him,” said Mrs. Denton.
“No, no! He had a perfect right to do it, and I had no right to complain. But it took me a little time to own it.”
Mrs. Denton turned to Peace. “Did you know about it?”
Denton burst suddenly into the room, and stared distractedly about as if he were searching for something.
“What is it, Ansel?” Peace asked.